


Alcoholism is Not a Sin

by TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Lance (Voltron), But only until later, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Filipino Lance (Voltron), Flashbacks, Getting Together, He just wants to help, He's just a confused bean, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It depends on what you think, Keith is angry, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Lance speaks a lot of languages, Lance wants revenge, Let the boy drink, M/M, Mainly Lance and Shiro, Mild Language, Multilingual Character, My blue boy has had a hard childhood, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pining Lance (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Racism, Racist Language, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Shiro is worried, Triggering content?, angry lance, but not really, not the main focus - Freeform, poor lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-01-07 04:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12225858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan/pseuds/TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan
Summary: Lance McClain, paladin of the Blue Lion, ninja sharpshooter extraordinaire. Also kind of a mess. Alright, maybe a lot of a mess. Maybe sometimes he remembers stuff he doesn't want to remember. Maybe sometimes he does things he's ashamed of afterward. And maybe he's not as great at keeping secrets as he thought.Shiro was the leader, he only wanted to help. Of course, ulterior motives (such as a crush) don't often help the whole helping thing, especially when that just leads to cuddles in the observation deck which have a tendency to distract him a little bit. Whoops?(In Which Lance Has Secrets, Shiro Does Not Understand Boundaries, Keith Is Suspicious And Bonding Moments Are A Thing)





	1. With the Benefit of Hindsight...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> PLEASE READ THIS!
> 
> I just wanted to give a few warnings.  
> This story is, I think, pretty heavy and very self-indulgent. If it's not your scene, I completely understand, but here's a little nod to what's coming up.
> 
> There are some racist terms in this fic. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO I CONDONE RACIST BEHAVIOUR, COMMENTS OR ACTIONS. For the purposes of this story, I felt it was necessary, but please do not repeat the terms in normal conversation. I will explain what they mean just so you understand the reference, but these are disgusting names and shouldn't be spoken in civilised conversation. Thanks.
> 
> Also, the rape/non-con is strictly implied. If it makes you uncomfortable, it is not described, portrayed as a fetish or used in any other way. Again, I felt it added to my work, but I apologise if you don't like it. Not gonna take it out though :p
> 
> There are some flashbacks in this fic, but none of them are particularly graphic or triggering (being as unrelatable as they are), unless the topics mentioned are specifically triggering to you. I apologise for this - all flashbacks will be written in italics, except for the chapter about Lance's backstory.
> 
> Also, all languages other than English will be from Google Translate. Yeah yeah, I know, but I don't know many bilingual people and I don't have a beta reader. I'm sorry - If anyone wants to correct me stick it in the comments, but be nice. Bullshit is unappreciated. Again, sorry about that :/
> 
> Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the story!  
> ~Marshy (TheStayPuftMarshmallowMan)

...maybe training in the middle of the night wasn’t such a great idea.

Lance groaned as he swung a long arm over his head, the muscles aching from an intensive team training session not eight hours ago. He successfully turned the quiet beeping of his alarm off and also managed to knock half the things piled on his end table onto the floor with a crash.

He winced and lay still, heart in his mouth as he waited for angry curses from Keith or Pidge to break the eerie silence that blanketed the Castle at night.

Then again, they didn’t have ‘night’ here, did they? There was no day/night cycle because they had no sun.

He breathed a sigh of relief when the silence remained unbroken and crept out of his room, thanking god that Altean floors didn’t creak like at home.

His slippers padded quietly against the polished floor as he crept down the enormous staircase to the kitchen. Through the control room. Into the large training deck.

Lance may not have looked like the kind to train excessively in the middle of the night, but he had to get better. How else was he supposed to help defeat the Galra and get back home? Earth was where he had to be. Let’s just say there was some...unfinished business he had to deal with.

If he couldn’t defeat the Galra, he couldn’t go home. If he couldn’t go home, he couldn’t deal with that _business_ . It was a simple flowchart, so simple even he could understand it. In order for him to defeat the Galra, in particular Zarkon, AKA alien Voldemort himself, he had to be at least _helpful_ to the team. Which he wasn’t.

He had countless flaws and very few redeeming qualities and constantly put others in dangerous situations. He liked to think that he got them out of them as well, but that usually ended up in him being badly injured, which apparently wasn’t popular either. Not that he minded as much as perhaps he should.

Lance laughed bitterly at the thought and wondered what they’d think if they actually saw him without his gloves on or without his shirt on.

Then he stopped thinking about being shirtless with a certain person nearby. The thought made him flush brightly and he shook his head, knowing that a) he had more important things to think about and b) it was useless anyway.

He sighed and flicked on the lights, again praising the heavens that Altean technology was ten thousand times more advanced than human. There was no whir or sound of electricity, or whatever this ship ran on. And he was glad that whoever had built the training room had had the foresight to soundproof it.

Lance did love forward thinking.

“Gladiator training, obstacle landscape, four on one, difficulty level five,” he said, standing in the centre of the room, spinning his bayard in his hand.

A light binged and an automatic timer came up, indicating that he had ten seconds preparation.

Activating his bayard, he ignored the shaking in his hands, knowing that once the sequence began he’d be fine.

Four towering robots with blue camera lenses spun out of the floor and began moving towards him, their wheels whirring over the slightly springy flooring.

The bots required four fatal shots to be shut down. Keeping his eyes trained on them, Lance vaulted over the nearest holographic boulder shaped obstacle and pressed his back against it. (How did that work anyway? Surely if it was holographic, you couldn’t touch it…)

He risked a quick look over the boulder and caught a glimpse of four lethal looking energy blasters pointing at him before he ducked behind his cover again. Gripping his bayard tight, he jumped up and shot twice at the nearest robot, both energy blasts hitting it in the face. Then he quickly aimed for the chest, and one was out of commission.

He allowed himself a proud smirk at that and checked the enormous (again holographic) timer floating up near the ceiling. Fifty seconds. Not bad. Lance ducked as the other three aimed for him, only just retreating before a shower of energy blasts blew over his head. Assholes.

He again jumped up, this time shooting while moving for cover behind another obstacle. Two hits, one to one’s face, one to another’s chest.

Jumping out once again, he changed tactics and ran straight for the closest gladiator, shooting it in the chest before leaping over its head and shooting it in the top of skull and then again to its back. Two down.

Realising his sticky situation, being circled by the remaining two robots, he shot one in the knee. It crashed to the floor, and he ran past it, shooting it four times in quick succession to the head.

Running for the last boulder, he managed to dodge most of the energy blasts from the last gladiator, but one grazed his side and one got him straight in the back.

He grimaced, but it wasn’t too painful, considering. He kept running towards the boulder, letting loose a shower of covering fire behind him. Once in safety, he realised breathing wasn’t as easy as before and quickly finished off the last one with three shots to the chest and one to the head.

“Sequence cleared.” A cool, female voice announced, the remains of the gladiators disappearing into the floor along with the boulders.

Lance shot a look at the clock. He had time for another few rounds.

*****

Two hours later Lance walked out of the training deck, dripping in sweat and bruises, a scowl, or maybe more of a grimace, plastered on his face, his shoulders shaking almost imperceptibly. Honestly, he thought to himself, he was turning into Keith. That thought only deepened the twisted expression.

Instead of heading to bed, he went back to the control room and into his pod. Blue always managed to calm him down.

Lance’s healthy dose of PTSD made it difficult for him to concentrate, especially when the ringing in his ears wouldn’t go away. Sometimes it did help calm him down, but...other times it just reminded him of the past.

The others didn’t know. How could he tell them? It wasn’t like it affected Voltron and even thinking about _it_ could send him spiralling down into an abyss so deep he wasn’t sure he would be able to crawl out again. However bad his PTSD was, it was obviously weak compared to Shiro’s. He couldn’t imagine being tortured at the hands of the Galra, but…

He tried not to remember the screams and gunfire back on Earth. He missed his family like no tomorrow, but his life wasn’t exactly easy. Not even Hunk knew the entire story, the big softy.

Lance sighed and realised that trying to not think about it was only making him think about it.

 

_FLASHBACK_

 

_“Mamá? Papá?” Lance cried from behind the sofa. Screams and yells could be heard everywhere, deafening him. Explosions rocked the house at the foundations, and rubble crashed around him, cutting his face. It stung and his cries got louder and louder, tears streaming down his face, salt mixing with blood, painting his face in a sticky, dark red mess._

*****

_“Quiero ir a casa!”_

_“Speak Arabic, you fucking gook!”_

_“I want to go home! Where’s my mama? Mama!”_ _  
_ _“You whiny brat, get back to where you come from!”_

_“Who brought this fucking thing along, he can’t shoot for shit!”_

_“What use is a spic that can’t even shoot someone?”_

*****

_The first real gun that Lance held had been when he was eleven._

_He clasped it tightly it in shaking hands as he pointed it at the father of a family, a family just like his. He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the trigger. Wails and screams met his ears, and though the sound resonated through his brain, he couldn’t hear them, he couldn’t hear them, he couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t feel anything._

_He cried himself to sleep every night. Every godforsaken night, on his narrow cot with countless other boys around him, all doing the same. They didn’t speak, harsh breaths becoming harsher whenever a light shone underneath the rough canvas of the tent._

_The choked sobs became a sort of sick lullaby to him._

*****

_At fifteen, he grew up. He wasn’t the scared boy that he was before. He was brave and daring and angry. He was angry and fueled by rage and he had had seven years of his life ripped away from him, his childhood ripped away from him._

_He, full of anger and full of hate, escaped._

_Momentarily, he felt the cool breeze of freedom on his face before he was dragged, kicking and struggling back to the camp, to be whipped and beaten for days on end, just for him to try again._

_And then, one day just like the others, he did it. He got out, he ran off, leaving all those other children behind._

*****

_He was back on earth and he was running. Gunfire pebbled the ground in front and behind him, his feet flying as he tried to get away. His heart was pounding so hard that he could barely hear anything else - it was like a drum beat getting louder and louder until the roaring in his ears threatened to overtake his brain._

_There was a rasping noise as well, forcing itself down into his lungs and then up out of his mouth. Laboured breaths were the onset of hyperventilation and his eyes started to dot with black around the edges from the overstimulation._

_An explosion about six feet to his left through him off his feet. The heat ripped down his unprotected body and shrapnel assaulted his bare shins and arms. Someone was screaming. He curled into a ball to try and ward off the gunfire, but it kept coming and it kept getting louder and louder and his throat was hoarse and then he was up and he was stumbling away._

_A cold, wet ditch. He rolled into it, ignoring the fetid water stinging and burning his cuts. The sky was tinted red, red like blood, like death. Sweat on his forehead trickled into his mouth and his lungs screamed for release. A dark figure loomed over him blocking the sky from sight and he screamed once more before he blacked out._

 

_FLASHBACK END_

*****

Lance sat up gasping from Blue, cold sweat on his forehead and ghost pains along his arms and legs. His hand went automatically to his bayard and he shot backwards so he was behind the cover of Blue’s front leg.

He looked around the room frantically, his eyes scouring every corner before he even loosened the tight grip on his bayard.

Lance’s breath was not coming easily, especially after the memory that his damaged brain had decided to throw at him. He wrapped his arms around his legs and rocked back and forth for a while until he felt his breathing ease and his heart rate slow down from the jackhammer it was before.

“I want to do something, Blue,” he said when he felt he could talk. His voice was raspy, but strong. “It’s my duty, you know?...I want to save them. It was so _bad_ there, it stunk of shit and blood and death. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Except maybe Zarkon…but then, when I think about it…”

Lance’s breaths started coming in short bursts, again blackness covered in a putrid red stench and the screams...the screams were so loud but he couldn’t...he couldn’t move, he was trapped in quicksand, except it wasn’t, it was blood and he was drowning-

Lance clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed tightly, rocking back and forth.

Breathe. In. Out.

Lance was good at regaining control during an...episode. It was like he didn’t even have PTSD and he was never tortured, not in the sense that Shiro was. Lance had never had to kill people for amusement or entertainment, which was worse, so much worse. He was just a tool, a weapon used by the government to quash rebellions. Used by the rebellion to kill innocent people. One among many, not special, not singled out...well, not until he was fifteen.

He felt sick.

Turning to the side, he puked everything in his stomach up, which was barely anything. He hadn’t eaten since dinner.

He sighed, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

“See you later, Bagre,” he said, one corner of his mouth lifting in a genuine smile as he left the hangar.

*****

What time was it?

Oh, yeah, time was relative in space.

Lance trudged down the hallways, ignoring the aches and pains in his body from the double training session, turning left and right without thinking until he found himself on an observation deck.

They had never been there before. In fact, he was pretty sure it had been untouched since the fall of Altea, ten thousand years ago.

A thick layer of dust covered everything in the room, which wasn’t much. The entire room was bare, with curved, thick glass walls that probably weren’t glass surrounding it. From the view and the fact that the walls and ceiling were all see through, Lance figured he was on the top of the ship.

He sighed and sat down in the middle of the room, grunting as his bruises and aching muscles moved.

It was peaceful out here. Surrounded by the stars and the silence.

The stars were so bright but so distant. He wondered it he could see their small sun from here, wondered whether if he squinted hard enough he could see earth.

He laughed at himself and lay down, his back pressed against the cold floor, grounding him and cooling the no doubt huge bruise on his back.

Lance had always been colder than normal. His brothers and sisters would take his hand or pull him in for a hug and then pull away quickly, hissing that he was _¡frío, frío! ¿Lao, has estado nadando de nuevo?_ Personally, he blamed it on the lack of any proper heating back in Syria. The perpetual coldness had seeped into him and wasn’t leaving in a hurry. Then again, he _did_ spend a lot of time swimming.

“That one’s Maria. That one is mamá and that’s papá beneath her because she was always so bossy. Fernando, Santiago, Mateo would be those three, they were inseparable. Poor mamá, having to give birth to those three at the same time,” Lance said to himself, pointing at the brightest stars. “Tía Sofia and tío Nicolás would be those ones and my cousins those seven around them. Mis hermanas, Isabella, Antonella and Mia would be there above the triplets because they were always looking after them.”

Lance’s arm dropped and he rolled over.

“Christian, Arvin, Benjie...Jajo, Dakila...Rizo, Virgilio, Kidlat, Armado...dios, I hope you’re still alive,” he murmured to himself. Remembering the boys names didn’t hurt him, didn’t hurt his head.

It made him feel better actually, to know that he could still recall his friends’ names. What wasn’t good was the way they screamed for him as he ran, pleading for him to come back, to save them.

“Babalik ako,” he said, the Filipino language rolling off his tongue easily. It had been the first language he’d learned after Spanish. Filipino and finally English.

“ _Ay ililigtas ko kayo, ako'y nanunumpa,_ ” he swore, his voice cracking as he buried his head in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's the first chapter! Hope you guys like it so far ;)
> 
> I've actually finished this story, but I'm still editing so you should expect a little gap between updates. I'll usually post two chapters at once, so that's one good thing isn't it?
> 
> Anyway, here are the definitions for you:
> 
> Gook - This is a racist slur against Far Easterners. Under no circumstances do I condone racism in any way, but I felt that these people, without wanting to give much away, would definitely use derogatory terms against Lance, being a mix of Spanish, Filipino and Irish.
> 
> Spic - referring to people of Hispanic descent. It is believed to come from the phrase "no 'spik' English", or be an abbreviation of 'Hispanic' itself.
> 
>  
> 
> Here are the translations-  
> SPANISH
> 
> Quiero ir a casa - I want to go home
> 
> Bagre - catfish (I couldn't resist, and it sounded cool so DUN DUN DUN - NEW HEADCANON!)
> 
> Frio, frio! Lao, has estado nadando de nuevo? - Cold, cold! Lao, have you been swimming again? (Lao is a nickname, he was actually christened Lance in this story)
> 
> FILIPINO - I like the idea of Lance being many ethnicities so I introduced Filipino heritage. If you have better phrases for what I'm trying to say, please comment, it'll make my day. Also, the Philippines were a much more realistic location for the plot
> 
> Babalik ako - I'll come back
> 
> Ay ililigtas ko kayo, ako'y nanunumpa - I will save you, I swear
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> ~Marshy


	2. As Per Usual...

...Shiro was worried. This time, it was about Lance. It was not like Lance to miss breakfast, especially not when Hunk had made the alien equivalent of garlic knots and enchiladas.

He finished his meal quickly and stood up abruptly.

“Hunk, have you seen Lance?” Shiro asked, looking to the large boy who kept shooting worried glances to the unoccupied seat to his right.

“No, I haven’t seen him since last night,” he said, looking almost sick with anxiety. “Usually he’s back by now…”

The last sentence was so quiet, Shiro had to physically lean in further to catch it. He frowned.

“Did he seem...off, to you last night?” Hunk asked, turning to Shiro desperately. “I worry about him…”

“He was very quiet, if that’s what you mean...and he didn’t really respond to anything, not even Keith and his challenges…”

“Yeah...he was…”

At that moment, Keith came skidding round the corner.

“Shiro! Come look at this!”

Before Shiro could reply, Keith was already sprinting back the way he had come. Offering a bewildered shrug to Hunk, Shiro took off after him, and the scrape of a chair and running feet behind him told him that Hunk was hot on his heels.

Keith was stood outside the training deck door, where all the logged training sessions went up and overall scores were shown. The only people who really checked it regularly was Coran, who was in charge of setting up the training simulations.

There, at the top of the (underwhelming) leaderboard, was the name Lance McClain.

Lance had the highest score.

“What the _fuck_.”

“Language,” Shiro said unthinkingly, still staring at the score. Lance wasn’t one to train without being told to, so how, _how_ , could his score be so high?

“Shiro, how is it this high?”

“He must’ve been training without us…” Shiro said, rubbing his face. “When did he log in?”

“Don’t know,” Keith shrugged. He looked both angry and worried. It was a rather...constipated look on his face.

Shiro tapped the screen with his metal arm and cursed when the whole system started blaring alarms and warning lights.

“Fucking...I always forget about that,” Shiro grumbled, earning a disgruntled snort and mutter from Keith that sounded suspiciously like ‘language’, before he pulled up the video recording and stats.

“It says here that it was at...about one a.m.”

“One a.m!” Keith practically exploded. “How can he get up at one a.m but can’t get up to the alarm?”

“Maybe _because_ he gets up at one a.m?”

Keith fell silent.

Shiro tapped the play icon, or what he hoped was the play icon, on the video. Keith moved to stand a bit closer, arms folded petulantly over his chest.

“ _Gladiator training, obstacle landscape, four on one, difficulty level five_ ,” on-screen Lance said, swinging his bayard from his hand. He wasn’t even dressed in armour or any protective clothing.

“Obstacle landsc-”

Shiro shushed Keith. They could find out more about how Lance knew so much about the settings in the training deck later.

Lance danced gracefully around the robots and the impromptu audience flinched when one of the gladiators got a nasty hit in on his back. To a fair amount of shock, virtual-Lance barely winced and shut down the other two robots before standing up and stretching his back out. The clicking was audible even through the distant microphones.

“ _Galra training, obstacle landscape, ten on one, difficulty level two_.”

Shiro didn’t stick around long after that. He was getting increasingly worried. Lance had taken a few hits, not as many as expected, but still a few. They should be hurting right about now, Shiro thought to himself as he watched Lance trip up a robot and shoot it point-blank in the face.

*****

Shiro didn’t sign up for this.

When he had escaped the Galra, he definitely wasn’t expecting to find himself back in space not even a day after returning to earth and fighting against them. And if you asked twenty four year old Shiro where he thought he’d be in a year’s time, the answer would be a joking ‘relaxing in a penthouse apartment in Phoenix’ after having returned from the Kerberos mission with enough money to last a lifetime and then some.

He was not counting on running around an alien castle-ship for half an hour.

And then...a set of footsteps made their way down the corridor. Shiro stopped in his tracks, and held his breath as Lance’s long legs appeared, followed by the rest of his lanky body.

“Lance!”

Lance’s head shot up so quickly Shiro was genuinely concerned he would get whiplash.

“Shiro? What are you doing here?” he asked, his body relaxing a fraction, though he still looked tense. Shiro watched him through narrowed eyes.  

“Looking for you,” came Shiro’s reply, his breath still slightly rushed.

Lance’s eyes flickered momentarily, but a cocky grin spread across his face easily, charm oozing through every orifice.

“Wow, I’m flattered but I only have eyes for the Princess,” he quipped, his eyes sparkling.

Shiro’s nostrils flared. A pet peeve of his. Lying when it is clear as day that the person being lied to can see right through the act.

“We saw your training video,” Shiro pressed, watching his reaction carefully.

“What training video?”

“The one from last night!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but do we have to do training today, I am _super_ tired, seriously did _not_ get enough sleep last night-”

“Lance, cut it out.”

Shiro must have sounded serious because Lance did as told for once.

“We’re worried about you,” Shiro said, stepping forward.

“Aw, thanks, but I’m fine seriously, but I could do with an aspirin because _man_ I woke up in a funny position and my back is killing me,” he said, taking a discreet step backwards. He was obviously trying to back off unnoticed. Little did he know that in order to get extra credentials for the Kerberos mission Shiro had had to take a course in body language and societal skills.

“Do you want me to have a look?” he asked innocently, playing up the persona of concerned space dad.

“No no, it’s all good, probably just slept weird!” he laughed nervously, scratching the back of his neck.

Shiro narrowed his eyes at him. He must think I’m an idiot, Shiro thought to himself.

“Lance. You need to talk to us.”

“I talk to you lot every day! Man, I probably talk more than you and Keith combined, if I do say so myself,” he said, preening himself.

Shiro’s concentration fell away as he was sidetracked by that...ridiculous statement. Why was he making talking into a competition?

“Wait, did I miss breakfast? Ah, _mierda_ , Hunk made it today as well!” he groaned and hurried off towards the kitchen while Shiro was still trying to make sense of Lance’s stupid adorable attitude.

By the time he turned around, Lance was gone.

*****

It was only until Allura called for a meeting in the control room that Shiro saw Lance again. Shiro was feeling rather irritated (more so than when he’d met Slav, and that was saying something) because he’d come to the conclusion that Lance was avoiding him. Which was...irritating.

Seeing him laughing and joking around with Hunk and Pidge made Shiro question his worries again, but the dead expression that flashed across his face when he thought no one was looking consolidated his resolve. Something was wrong with Lance, and Shiro was going to find out what.

“Paladins, I have a special training exercise today,” Allura began. Shiro shook his head and told himself to worry about Lance later.

“You all need to get better at aiming, so today I thought we’d do some shooting exercises from the lions. The castle will deploy a squad of drones and you will have to take them down.”

Keith groaned. The entire team knew that he much preferred close quartered combat, but in reality, they did a lot more fighting in the lions than on foot. It made sense to practice shooting skills, Shiro thought. If Lance’s pleased look made him a little biased, no one had to know.

After a brief pep talk from Coran, he headed to his pod and descended into the private hangars. As he flicked switches on the controls, the other four Paladins showed up on screen.

Lance and Keith were already arguing about who would take down more drones and Pidge was swearing at the two of them to shut up. Hunk looked like he was eating.

“Guys, calm down. We have a mission to complete.”

Lance rolled his eyes.

“Uh, almighty leader Shiro, I hate to break it to you but I am like 99 percent sure this is a training exercise…” he said, leaning forward.

“Not now Lance,” Shiro replied, rolling his eyes in turn.

Lance leant back, grumbling about how underappreciated he was. He was ignored.

“Shiro, why are you grinning like an idiot? Shouldn’t we be leaving?” Keith asked impatiently, tapping his fingers on the joysticks. A flush itched up Shiro’s neck and the dopey smile dropped from his face, merging into his usual stoic one.

“C’mon Keith! We were enjoying a bit of fluffy Shiro!” Lance complained, leaning forward again so his face took up the majority of his camera.

“Is your mouth connected to your brain?” Keith wondered out loud as the lions left the hangars. Lance’s squawk of indignation was ignored and drowned out by the sounds of laser guns starting to shoot at the lions instantly.

All in all, the training session didn’t take long. The Castle’s defenses had been designed with Galra ships in mind, and after ten thousand years weren’t quite as up to date as they could have been. Meaning they wiped the floors with those drones.

Lance though, Lance was incredible. He really was the team sharpshooter, Shiro thought with pride. They’d all come so far.

As they headed back to the hangars, this time more slowly, Shiro allowed his worry to come back in all its glory. He just wanted Lance to talk to him, was that so wrong?


	3. On The One Hand...

...the mission had been a success. One the other? Well. 

Lance knew they were waiting for him, but he didn’t want to leave the comfort of Blue.

_ Then don’t leave, idiota. _

“Callate,” he retorted, before calling down to the others that he was going to stay for a while.

To him, it was obvious that he’d messed up. That one drone that had got a clear hit at Shiro should have been easy to deal with, a clear shot, but he missed. Then there were the two that ganged up on Hunk from behind. He should’ve seen them, they flew right in front of him 

_ You are so dramatic _

“You’re one to talk,  _ hijo de puta _ ,” Lance replied, the easy grin on his face conflicting with his troubled eyes.

_ Say that to my face _

Lance sighed and looked out of the windshield. He couldn’t see the stars from inside the hangar, but Shiro and Hunk were clearly visible and clearly talking about him, judging from the worried glances they kept shooting the Blue Lion.

“Why can’t they leave?” Lance groaned, standing up and stretching in the confines of the cockpit.

_ Because they care about you, hijo de puta _ .

Lance felt Blue sling his words back at him and he laughed. His back barely even twinged anymore, but his hands still felt swollen and sore from the previous morning.

He’d punched a hole in his wall.

Perhaps not the best idea in hindsight, but at the time it was all he could do to stop himself cutting his own hand off. Why couldn’t he aim right? Why couldn’t he fly right? Why couldn’t he hear right?

The last one didn’t have much to do with his hands, but he’d come close to ripping his ears off before.

Not that that would have done anything.

He sighed and watched Shiro and Hunk converse quietly.

“ _ Idiotas _ ,” he muttered. “They aren’t even  _ trying _ to be discrete.”

Lance wondered how long it would be before they left and he could go back to the observation deck.

In the end they stayed for longer than he was either expecting or wanting. His pacing was almost wearing a hole in the metalwork of Blue’s polished floor, something she was quick to complain to him about.

Being an impatient person - blame it on his mother - Lance came to the conclusion that if he wanted to get out of his lion without talking to anyone, he’d have to, quote unquote, ‘engage stealth mode’ and 007 this bitch.

He gingerly slid open the hatch in the back of Blue’s neck and crawled out, wincing when his shoe squeaked against her shoulder. Hearing nothing from the duo out front, he continued, managing to slide the hatch shut after him without any trouble. 

Lance glanced over the edge of her shoulder, seeing the hangar floor a good twenty feet or more below him and felt a sense of vertigo make his vision swim. He gulped and clung harder to the armour plating over her shoulders. Closing his eyes, he thought back to those days of rock-climbing and started shifting from one hand hold to the other, displaying remarkable upper body strength (those pull ups were obviously not in vain), until his feet touched the floor.

Peeking around Blue’s impressive back leg, he caught a glimpse of Shiro and Hunk still talking, though apparently about something else since they were no longer shooting periodic Worried Looks TM at Blue and were chuckling about something. He breathed a sigh of relief and started ducking around obstacles until he reached the back entrance of the hangar.

As the door slid silently open, he shot a mocking salute at his comrades, a, for once, completely genuine smirk on his face, and fell into a backward roll into the corridor behind. 

Chuckling under his breath, he jogged down the hall towards the main corridor that split the Castle into two wings. He slowed as he passed the door that led to what Coran called the ‘cellar of destiny’ and peered curiously into its depths. If he was being honest...there was only one thing down there worth seeing. And it was not that life sized portrait of a Weblum that Coran had put down there after a miscommunication on a space mall.

Before he could second guess himself, he hurried down the wide stairs into the relative darkness below. The lights flickered on automatically and his heart leapt when he saw exactly what he’d been expecting.

Huge shelves stacked with bottles. There was only one thing that could be. 

He hesitated momentarily, rubbing a thumb over the wooden ring on his right middle finger. A...memento, if you will. One year - two now, but who’s counting - clean. Was it worth it? Lance shot a scowl at the floor. He was in an intergalactic war for Christ’s sake. Surely there was no better time.

Before he could talk himself out of it (he needed it, alright?) he grabbed the nearest bottle, full of a pleasant looking amber liquid, and practically ran out of the cellar, guilt creeping up his spine and making his hands shake.

*****

Eventually, he made his way to the observation deck. The angel and devil on his shoulders were having a nasty tiff over the bottle still clutched in his hands and so far it looked like the devil was winning. 

He collapsed onto the floor, pressing his back against one of the enormous pillars and stretching his legs out in front of him. 

The angel made him throw the bottle, and it bounced off another column before rolling to a stop a few metres from the door. Panic filled him and he quickly ran to pick it up before anyone could see it.

To drink or not to drink? Everyone had coping mechanisms. Pidge reverted to insomnia and drowning herself in work. Hunk stress baked. Keith trained incessantly. Shiro...Shiro’s sleep schedule was fubar and he worked more than Pidge did. Surely Lance deserved some way of getting through this?

He buried his head in his hands, knowing that this was exactly what had happened last time. He’d talked himself into drinking and it had ended up in his mother forcing him to join an alcoholics’ anonymous club at the ripe age of sixteen.

Wow. Thinking on it, his childhood really was fucked up. 

That thought was what did it. His eyebrows furrowed and he popped open the bottle with an ease that only came from years of practice. Taking a swig, he sighed as the bitter liquid slid down his throat, burning his oesophagus and settling in his stomach like a dead weight. Despite that, warmth and relaxation made all his usually tense muscles relax and he slumped against the pillar, bottle now loose in his hand.

He grinned lazily at the stars before raising the bottle to his lips again and gulping down another mouthful. This stuff was strong, Lance thought, checking the alcohol content. There were a few characters at the bottom of the bottle, that Lance vaguely recognised as a 4 and a 19. What that meant he had no idea, but if nunvill was a 1 and a 12, then this was probably a lot stronger.

Then again, nunvill was barely alcoholic and tasted like liquified marshmallows and unicorn fluff. It was that sweet.

*****

Lance didn’t know how much time had passed, only that at some point he lifted the bottle and there was none left. He pouted and threw the bottle away, this time not caring if it rolled out of the doorway.

His bloodshot eyes looked blearily around the room and fixated on the control panel. His pupils dilated and constricted randomly as he staggered across the room and flicked a switch. 

The anti-grav turned off and whatever semblance of common sense he had left made him grab hold of the panel before he floated up to the top of the room and never got down again. 

Something inside him sobered up and he shot a slightly nervous glance at his helmet abandoned on the floor before he got sidetracked by the stars. His eyes widened and he reached out an arm, trying to catch one. The sober part of him refused to let go of the wall, but Drunk Lance TM was very keen on getting one of those sparkly things.

Eventually Sober Lance TM won that fight and he instead focussed back on the control panel. 

“How the hell did I do this?” Lance wondered out loud, his voice disturbingly slurred, like it hadn’t been for ages. He caught sight of a harness which he put on before Drunk Lance TM made a reappearance. 

He let go carefully, his fingers relaxing their death grip on the panel with a cry of relief (they were still swollen after the wall punching incident). He floated up to the top of the room, so close to the ceiling that he couldn’t see the floor anymore and it felt, to his sense-dulled mind, that he was literally flying among the stars.

Calmness descended over him for the first time in...God, how long? It had to be at least nine years. And back then, he was a seven year old kid, so calmness probably wasn’t even in his definition. Just for a moment, Lance let himself feel peace. It was a disorienting sensation after so much fear and guilt.

Like a trigger, it all came rushing back. Feelings that, for one glorious moment, he couldn’t remember. The guilt, the loss, the grief.

Lance pressed his lips together into a thin line. He wouldn’t cry, not here and not now. He could cry when he was done, when all of this was done.

*****

_ FLASHBACK _

 

_ Explosions wracked the trench, and the boys huddled into each other, wide eyes swimming with tears. _

_ “Mahal kong Diyos, sa aking oras ng pagkamatay, at sa panahong ito ng kalungkutan, patawarin mo ako sa aking mga kasalanan at bigyan ako ng access sa maluwalhating kaharian. Humingi ako ng kapatawaran sa pagdudulot ng iyong galit. Protektahan ako mula sa mga apoy ng impiyerno na umulan sa amin. Itigil ang armas na ito na sumasakit sa amin. Tulungan mo ako, sagipin mo ako, mag bakante akin…” _

_ They muttered to themselves, stringing their beads around their necks, linked to the scratched pieces of metal on the leather string. Others clutched their arms and shook every time an explosion happened. _

*****

_ A thrum vibrated through his entire body, his heart threatening to tear its way out of his chest as his feet scrambled across the dry, scruffy desert. Behind him, he could make out the sound of his captors’ harsh Arabic tongue, barking commands to find him and punish him.  _

_ The rumble of engines filled the air and he cursed, praying for his feet to speed up, keep running, never stop. His muscles were screaming, his lungs on the verge of collapse yet he couldn’t stop. The tyres were only metres behind and there were gunshots, spattering the ground at his feet. _

_ One ripped through his shoe and he heard laughter as he screamed, trying desperately to keep moving, not stop, but they were just humouring him now. That much was clear when a dark hand wrapped around his neck and yanked him into the bed of a truck, were a series of kicks rained down on his body, curled into the foetal position protectively. _

*****

_ Straps. Leather straps around his chest and arms. He was suspended, his legs dangling uselessly below him. He could just make out the sight of a dirty bandage wrapped around his left foot through his swimming vision.  _

_ The light was dingy, illuminating nothing and suddenly a rough hessian sack was shoved over his head. It stunk of vomit and piss and he suddenly felt like he was about to contribute, when the sound of something on wheels entered the tent. He could smell smoke and the searing heat as it passed under his feet. He lifted his feet instinctively, trying to get away from the fire, but someone yanked them down, digging a thumb into the bullet wound in his foot, ripping a hoarse yell from his throat. _

_ There was a clang of metal on metal and then something white hot stroked slowly up his side, millimetres away from his flesh. Sweat beaded along his body, and the skin reddened where the man held the white-hot something.  _

_ Before he could ready himself, the stamp, because it was a stamp, was pressed hard against his chest. A millisecond and then the sound of someone broken filled the tent, an agonising scream. He could smell his flesh burning, sizzling, and there was a ring of fire over his heart, making his entire body convulse, his legs kicking, thrashing and it wasn’t moving and instead of the faint pinpricks of light through the gaps in the sack all he could see was blackness and the pain was still ongoing and- _

 

_ FLASHBACK END _

*****

Lance squeezed his eyes shut against the memories and clenched his muscles tight, locking his arms against their bonds. It was no use. His body was already shaking. He was consumed by the fire, the heat. It was never ending.

But there was something… It would at least numb the feeling. And that,  _ that _ was his purpose. 

He would rather go through that torture again than not fulfill it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was pretty heavy, well, to me at least. Hope you guys are enjoying how the plot is thickening? Have any of you figured out what happened to Lance in his childhood?
> 
> I am actually really excited to post the rest now XD
> 
> Anyway, here are the translations. You can probably tell the difference between Filipino and Spanish now, but once again, I apologise for the use of Google Translate. It's probably really bad :/
> 
> Idiota - idiot
> 
> Callate - shut up 
> 
> Hijo de puta - son of a bitch
> 
> That massive chunk of Filipino is supposed to be a prayer. About 80% of the population over there is Catholic, so I thought it made sense. If there are any native Filipinos reading, I am sorry for butchering your language.
> 
> It's supposed to translate to - Dear God, in my hour of death, and in this time of sorrow, forgive me of my sins and give me access to the glorious kingdom. I beg forgiveness for causing your anger. Protect me from the hellfire that rains on us. Stop this weapon that afflicts us. Help me, save me, free me  
> -Please note; I completely pulled this out of my arse. It is in no way an actual prayer, so yeah, I just figured that it was dramatic enough to sound like a bunch of kids trying to survive in these conditions. 
> 
> So yeah, that's it for now. Sorry about the 'technical issues' too, I was having difficulty with the end notes thing and it was really fucking me over.  
> ~Marshy


	4. Back in the Day...

...Shiro was a mischievous kind of person. He enjoyed pranks, though infinitely preferred playing them to being the victim of them, and often used his apparent immunity at the Garrison to get away with many of them.

So it was still a relatively unusual feeling to be so sick with worry over something. Even when he was training for the Kerberos mission, he didn’t feel this kind of stress.

He groaned and buried his head in his hands, fingers tugging at the white forelock over his forehead. He threw himself back away from his desk dramatically, staggering over to his bed and collapsing onto it with a huff of exasperation.

What in the hell was wrong with Lance? The thought revolved around his head incessantly. Why doesn’t he talk to someone?

It was like one of those paradoxes that just fell into your head during a shower or something and couldn’t stop thinking about. Or when lyrics got stuck so far inside your brain that nothing could seem to stop them.

Shiro’s own brain, however, was not functioning at its best. Then again, considering it was _four in the morning_ , that was understandable.

Giving up all pretenses of trying to sleep, he rolled out of his bed, landing on his ass on the floor and pulled himself to his feet. The amount of effort involved made the entire act seem ridiculous and his dull expression only seconded that.

The door slid open silently and Shiro immediately froze in his tracks.

Lance. His face lax and mid-yawn fell back into a neutral expression as he plodded down the hall towards the main corridor. Shiro couldn’t help but quirk a one-sided smile at the sight before he darted out of the door and followed at a distance.

As they traversed the dimly lit hallways of the Castle, Shiro started to wonder where they were actually headed. Up sweeping staircases, through enormous ballrooms and, for some reason, a pantry, down sweeping staircases, through enormous state rooms. Lance seemed to be leading him on a wild goose chase.

At one point they entered a room so big he couldn’t make out the ceiling above them. Although...that could be more to do with the fact that the room was literally a jungle.

A series of walkways wound their way through the forest, the floor below at least twenty metres down. There were no handrails. That alone had Shiro’s heart racing, especially since Lance seemed to pay it no heed, striding along the paths with a confidence he hadn’t seen before.

Obviously Lance knew exactly where they were going. He continued down the bridges until he stopped at what was possibly the tallest tree in the room. Its upper canopy was hidden by the others and its trunk was probably ten steps across in diameter. Lance stopped and leaned forward, pulling a few leaves off of a vine crawling up its trunk, and stuffing them into his pockets. Then he continued on his way. Shiro, confused, stopped at the trunk as well, leaning forward to inspect the innocent looking plant.

It had dark reddish-purple leaves with electric blue veins criss-crossing over the surface. He snapped one off and sniffed it, eyes widening when a pungent scent hit his nostrils and instantly made him relax.

Shiro’s eyes narrowed and he glared after Lance’s retreating back before he jogged to catch up.

*****

After a few more ‘pit-stops’ around the Castle, Lance seemed to be ready to get to wherever he was going. His steps lengthened considerably, and he seemed to get lighter, almost flying down the corridors. Shiro was speed-walking to keep up, less concerned with remaining hidden now that he knew Lance was focussed on his destination.

He headed up a sloped hallway through a hole in the ceiling. As he disappeared from view, Shiro crept up as close as he dared to the gap and felt his jaw drop. It was beautiful. Pressurised glass (maybe?) windows lined the walls and curved up to a dome shape high above the floor. There were enormous white columns dotted around the room, one of which Lance was leant against nonchalantly, staring up at the magnificent view of the stars.

Shiro creeped inside and hid behind one of the other pillars, positioning himself so that he could see Lance, but Lance wouldn’t be able to see him.

Lance’s shoulders were raised protectively, his back tense and Shiro wondered how his training injuries were. They had looked nasty and judging by his careful movements, not fully healed, nor properly healed.

It would probably leave a scar.

Taking his blue eyes off of the stars, he headed for the sleek control panel set into one of the pillars. It did a retina scan, as always, and slid open for Lance, who immediately started pushing buttons and flipping switches.

It all looked very professional, until Shiro caught sight of the confused expression on Lance’s face and realised that the boy didn’t have a clue what he was doing.

Shiro’s concern melted into exasperation and he was considering abandoning his hiding spot in favour of going to ask Lance what he was doing. Then he suddenly felt absurdly light and realised the ceiling was much closer than before.

He chanced a glance at the floor and was slightly bemused to find that his feet were no longer touching it. Heart pounding, he dug his fingers into the panelling on the nearest pillar and chanced a glance around it’s wide base to catch a glimpse of Lance, floating serenely up near the top of the room.

There was a rustle of fabric and suddenly Lance had flung his jacket across the room, it’s trajectory altered by the lack of gravity, and it came to a halt not four feet from Shiro.

He fixed his gaze back on the Blue Paladin, eyes widening when he saw Lance struggling with his shirt next, which met the same fate as the jacket. As far away as Shiro was, the harsh, hoarse breathing coming from Lance was clearly audible in the silence, and the light glinted off his skin, giving away the sheen of sweat that covered it.

Lance ripped his jeans off and immediately went lax, his arms and legs spread wide and a light flush over his body.

Was he sick? Shiro wondered, staring in concern at the boy. Maybe that was why he’d been so withdrawn.

As quickly as he’d gone still, he started moving again. Only this time, it was more of a muscle spasm, or involuntary reflex. His arms were trembling, specifically his left dominant arm and especially his hand. The flush on his skin darkened, revealing perhaps the most shocking discovery of all.

Scars. Small, white ones criss-crossing over his body and bigger, raised pink ones that were only faintly visible from Shiro’s viewpoint. The missing chunk of his ear seemed trivial compared to them, and Shiro had been caught up on that for a while after Pidge had brought it up.

Shiro was shaken from his thoughts by a quiet cry that echoed ominously around the room.

“ _No, no, no… Mangyaring!_ ”

*****

Shiro could once have claimed to be a patient person. If things didn’t at first go to plan, then that meant there was an opportunity to try again, to make improvements. Sometimes he even preferred failure, since it made way for a newer, better success than that which could have been conceived before.

After all, his motto was ‘patience yields focus’.

Which made it really rather frustrating when he was subjected to the new emotion of impatience.

As much as it was a novelty, it was more of a hindrance and Shiro would honestly have rather not experienced it at all. Especially when the emotion was specifically linked to the boy he was desperately trying to keep his feelings for under control.

Shiro sighed and rolled out of bed grudgingly. It was early. Again. He should have been asleep, as should Lance, but apparently the Blue Paladin ran on his own timeline. One that included waking up at death o’clock AM.

It seemed a lifetime ago that Lance was late for anything.

He plodded grumpily out of his room and headed straight for the observation deck. There was no way Lance would be going anywhere else, considering he’d only got back from the training deck an hour ago.

On his way through the rainforest, he checked the vine plant that Lance had cut before and discovered that more leaves were missing.

“Lance, what are you doing?” Shiro groaned, closing his eyes momentarily before continuing on his way.

Shiro heard Lance before he saw him. A quiet mumble, indiscernible through the walls, but clearly Lance’s smooth voice alerted him to his presence even as Shiro entered the corridor at the other end. The acoustics in Altean architecture were not designed for secrecy.

As he stepped into the room, he saw Lance lying on his back staring up at the stars, one arm waving lazily over his head, the other over his forehead, hand curled into a light fist.

“-took us from all over, Blue. I reckon those three would be Deshi, Bao and Chen because they were the only ones from China...always together. Thank _dios_ mamá taught me some Chinese before. And that group is...they would be the Syrian boys. Hayyan, Nizar, Adnan, Mohammed, Halil...I can’t...I can’t remember!”

He curled up into a ball and put his head in his hands, rocking back and forth slightly.

Shiro would have been concerned and dashed in to help, but was frozen. The reality of the situation crashed down on him.

Two things had become abundantly clear to Shiro in the last thirty seconds. One: he liked Lance. And two: Lance had PTSD.

With that revelation, Shiro ran into the room, stumbling over his feet again, and skidded to a halt on his knees by Lance’s prostrate form.

There was the faint smell of the plant lingering around him and to one side Shiro saw the used butts of joints, one still smoking slightly.

“Lance.”

He made no response. Shiro placed a hand on the back of Lance’s neck, shocked at how cold it was and tried again.

“Lance. It’s okay. It’s going to be alright, whatever it is, it’s not happening anymore-”

“ _Yes it is_!”

Shiro would have liked to say that he didn’t jump when Lance shouted, but he did. In fact, he scooted backwards on his butt a few inches, much to his embarrassment.

“IT HAPPENS EVERY DAY, EVERY GODDAMN DAY, BUT HOW CAN I STOP IT WHEN I’M STUCK IN SPACE? _NECESITO REGRESAR, VOS NO SABES, VOS NO SABES,_ YOU DON’T KNOW! I NEED TO GO BACK, I NEED TO SAVE THEM, ALL OF THEM! YOU...YOU HAVE NO IDEA...how...how can I be here...when they...they a-are all there...l-l-literal _hell_ , you...y-you don’t...y-you could never know…”

At some point Lance started crying, tears streaming down his face, his eyes wild and pained.

Shiro placed his hand back on Lance’s neck, massaging it gently, but also warily. He knew for a fact that PTSD wasn’t exactly safe for those around the victim, particularly when they’re going through an _episode_. God, Shiro hated that word.

Eventually Lance managed to calm down, and he rubbed his eyes viciously. He turned an angry glare on Shiro, his bloodshot eyes narrowed into slits.

“What are you doing here?”

Unlike the first time, this time he said challengingly, his voice cold and hard.

“Looking for you.”

“Why?”

“I...I am worried about you,” Shiro said, burying his feelings deep within his chest. Now wasn’t the best time to start confessing an undying love for your teammate.

“Well, don’t be, I am perfectly...perfectly _fine_.”

Shiro rolled his eyes at Lance.

“Lance-”

“No, don’t _Lance_ me. I know that you have other things to worry about, so why are you worrying about _me_ ? Me of all people? I...I am _nothing_ ,” he spat, his face twisted and bitter.

“Listen to me.”

Shiro’s voice had more authority now. Lance sneered, an unattractive look on him, one that looked so out of place on his face that Shiro would have thought it was a different person altogether.

“We, all of us, care for you. You are important to us, we wouldn’t be able to function without you. I don’t know your past or your life, but I know _you_ and you don’t act like this.”

“What if this is the real me and the Lance you know is the act.”

Shiro frowned and for the first time contemplated the possibility. And suddenly he knew exactly what to say.

“I...I would want to make the Lance I know a reality…” he said hesitantly. “I would want to see you as happy as you act everyday…”

Lance gaped at Shiro, who turned slightly red in embarrassment.

“Are you for real?”

“I bear my soul for you and all I get is an ‘are you for real’?” Shiro said teasingly, still keeping a tight grip on Lance.

He was quiet and then let out a sigh that seemed far too old for someone his age.

“I’ll tell you.”

“What?”

“It was an unspoken question. I’m going to tell you my whole, long, tragic backstory and once we’re done, tell me how you can help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I am so sorry guys. College had me working like a bitch, then Kingsman 2 came out and I was crying and then I had a little freak out about Avengers Infinity War and friendship drama and you know the drill.
> 
> Anyway, I figured I should post something to keep you lot happy, so I hope you liked this chapter! Also, if you've figured out Lance's past, props to you, you smart sons of bitches. Very well done.
> 
> Oh and just so you know - I mean prostrate as in 'lying catatonic on the ground' not prostate as in 'gland inside man's anus, commonly found in smut fics'. Hehehe :'''D
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Mangyaring - Please
> 
> Necesito regresar - I need to go back
> 
> Vos no sabes - You don't know


	5. Like Mamá Always Said

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, I tried a little first person here. Don't know how well it worked or if I captured Lance properly, but of course, he's out of character in the story, since, yannow, he doesn't suffer from PTSD.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the chapter!
> 
> LANCE'S POV

...Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Well, actually, it was more like, never look a prostitute in the eyes, but she stopped saying it when I got old enough to understand it. In all honesty, I still don’t understand why she said that - something about realising that there’s an actual human beneath that mask?

If I ever went to a prostitute I probably would have been disowned.

You’re probably wondering how that relates to my story at all. Well, I guess it all began when I was eight. Me and my entire family decided to move to the Philippines. You remember, of course, that most Mediterranean countries were getting severely overpopulated ‘because of the influx of refugees from Africa?

Yeah. They kinda drove us out of our home. Still, being a little shit-faced idiot, I didn’t really care about the move, as long as I could still go swimming in the sea with my brothers and sisters. Bear in mind, I was about four by then.

Overall, my childhood was pretty sweet. I swam every day, learned to surf, we even went to Australia one time. It was awesome, actually. Me and Maria, my little sister, and Luiz, my twin brother, would go surfing all the time, so it was very idyllic. At first.

This is where the whole ‘gift horse’ thing comes in. See, we had figured all our problems would go away as soon as we left Spain. For a while, they did. And then, in March four years later, the attacks started.

A new terrorist group, they said. Focussing on east Asian countries, specifically with good ocean access, they said. Trying to increase their influence over major global parties, they said.

Who ‘they’ were, I never knew. Point was, the Philippines ticked every box on their godforsaken checklist.

My family thought that we were safe. We were off the mainland, we weren’t going to be targeted.

How wrong they were.

For months we would huddle around the TV and watch the reports of the attacks and bombings, moving steadily south from Russia to Japan to Korea to China...it was inevitable, really.

I was scared, but my papá said he would protect me. I was a kid. Of course, I believed him, even though looking back on it, he never did seem particularly sure about that.

So I ignored the frequent news updates and Maria, Luiz and I kept surfing and then...then it happened.

There was an alarm, a prior warning, that the terrorists were targeting our island next. My madre and padre had no idea what to do. My aunts and uncles and cousins had already left, but my parents...were a lot more stubborn.

I don’t blame them for what happened next, but...but I went down to the beach as normal and started surfing. I came back and...and they were gone. They had packed up the car and sped off to the airport to evacuate.

Without me.

Being eight, I had no fucking clue what was going on. Naturally I thought we were all playing a game of hide and seek, so I hid behind the sofa. It probably saved my life. And then the attack started. Explosions and fire and screaming...I was so scared and I started crying. Which was the probably the worst thing I could have done.

I was found by the terrorists. They came in holding guns, with masks over their eyes and rubble all around me.

I thought I was being saved, but then one smashed me in the face with his gun to ‘ _waqf hdha aldajij sakhif_ ’, which in English means ‘stop this fucking noise’. They were lovely men. Really charming.

When I came to, I was in the back of a truck full of other boys around my age. Some of them were my friends from school. We just huddled together and I don’t really remember much of the journey. I just prayed that my family was safe and that I would be too.

Of course, being kidnapped by terrorists doesn’t usually connote with ‘safety’, so…

When we got to the base camp, we were separated by age and then gender. I was immediately put into the manual labour sector, which fed into the armed forces. They shaved us and branded us.

There’s a name for it. Child soldier.

For the first few months, I was still oblivious to my situation. I was nine by this point. The rest of the boys and I did training, which is how I’m so _good_ at shooting.

If we didn’t have perfect aim, we’d have our fingernails or toenails ripped out.

Or we’d be beaten on by the thugs.

We were put in the field as soldiers when we were ten. They made us sign a contract.

I shot my first real gun when I was eleven...at the dad of a family in Syria. I...I killed someone’s dad, someone’s _dad_. That man was probably their hero or something and I just...I just shot him.

It was the worst thing I’d ever done.

But then...then it got worse. _I got used to it_. I got used to shooting innocent people, to killing people in a war I was never meant to fight in.

By the time I was twelve, shooting live, innocent people was second nature. I hated it, but I didn’t close my eyes anymore and I didn’t look away. It was around this time that...that the anger started coming in.

I wasn’t eight anymore. I’d spent four years in their captivity and I was...not exactly the most passive of the bunch. I got beaten up practically every day of the week. Theft, insubordinance, assault, the charges gradually got worse. My friends and comrades would beg me to let it go, but that just made it worse.

I didn’t want them to be defeated, but in reality, we were all dead inside.

The war continued. It might still be continuing, far as I know.

When I was fifteen, I began trying to escape. The first time I was caught, and I got my stomach slashed open and a second brand. The second time I was caught, I got my eardrums blasted. That’s what actually happened to my ear. The hearing’s still a little off in it, there’s a lot of ringing.

Third time, I got waterboarded. And then, the fourth time, I did it. I managed to escape far enough to reach the road and then, to my immense luck, a cart rumbled past. Being a soldier, although dramatically underfed, meant I was fast and I stowed away in it until I reached the border.

I eventually found my family in Cuba. They were so happy to have me back, for me being safe that they didn’t realise that I was very different.

For starters...being in the army wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. One way to make the ride a little smoother was by consuming large quantities of alcohol. It sort of...drowned out the noise? Made everything a bit easier to bear.

Then there was weed. Course, there were much harder drugs rolling around in the barracks, some under the noses of our superiors, some they just didn’t care about. Being raised in that environment is not ideal for teaching kids about what is healthy or not, so I had no qualms about trying new stuff. Cocaine, LSD, psilocybin, even heroin, but nothing stuck except marijuana.

I see that look. To summarise, I returned to my family an alcoholic and an addict, with a nasty dose of PTSD and anger-issues, so you can understand what I’m saying when they quickly rolled up the red carpet.

But I got help. Got sober. One year clean...well, until yesterday. But where am I? Back in another war. Some habits are hard to break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems a bit unfinished at the moment, but don't worry, it leads into the next chapter pretty nicely if I do say so myself.
> 
> Speaking of, that should be up fairly soon. I mean it this time - I got a half week next week, so probably no pressing homework, praise be.
> 
> ~Marshy
> 
> Okay, so clearly that was a complete and utter lie... don't hate me too much! Next chapter is up now though!


	6. Alcohol Doesn't Solve Problems

But then again, neither does water. In fact, in comparison to a lot of people who had had similar experiences, Lance was fairly well-adjusted.

Shiro couldn’t seem to stop staring at him. Lance’s hunched back betrayed the nonchalance with which he had told his story, and Shiro could honestly say that he was shocked. When he’d figured out something was wrong with Lance, he’d not expected this.

His voice, which had been hoarse, croaky and slurred at the beginning had got gradually harder and colder as he spoke, and the mismatched sized pupils of his eyes gave him a slightly insane appearance.

“Lance,” Shiro said softly, helping the boy into a sitting position. “You don’t need to explain that to me. I’m in no position to judge.”

Lance only sniffed in response and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, letting out a groan that seemed to reverberate through the entire room.

“Thanks, man,” Lance said, still not looking at him. Shiro’s eyes narrowed and he gently tilted Lance’s head to face him.

“I’m serious. And if you ever need help, you know I’m always around, right?” he continued, and if a part of him hoped that the redness in Lance’s cheeks was caused by him rather than the drugs, well, no one had to know.

“Yeah,” Lance whispered, offering a crooked, not quite genuine smile. He sighed and slumped backwards again so he was laying on his back. Shiro scooted so he was leaning against the nearest pillar and froze when he realised that this position meant that Lance’s head was resting on his lap.

Pushing that thought down, another one rose to the surface and his face scrunched up at it. Still, a sort of sick curiosity had filled him and he was powerless to stop it.

“Can I ask a question?” Shiro said softly, not daring to look at Lance’s reaction.

“You just did,” Lance snorted, but he nodded.

“Uh,” Shiro cleared his throat nervously. “It’s okay if you don’t want to...but, would it be okay if...if I saw your brands?”

Lance started and his hands started flexing into fists. The shape was wrong though...they seemed swollen and misshapen…

“Wait. Give me your hands.”

Lance swallowed and offered them up without complaint. Shiro stripped off the worn leather, wincing at the bloodied and bruised fingers. Some knuckles were clearly broken, the swelling clear as day.

“What is this? What happened?”

Lance looked away, a blotchy red flush creeping up his neck.

“I, uh...it just sometimes gets...too much to take, so...I kinda...punch? Stuff?”

“You punch stuff?”

“Mainly walls,” Lance elaborated.

Shiro let this sink in for a moment, before he started stroking a thumb over the cracked skin of Lance’s knuckles subconsciously.

“Shiro?”

“Wha- Oh! Sorry!” he said, snatching his hands away quickly and burying them deep in his pockets.

“No, it’s fine,” Lance said, sounding slightly amused.

Shiro shook his head, trying to regain his train of thought.

“Your brands?” he repeated, blinking thoroughly as though he’d got water in his eyes.

“Right...You...you’re going to see a bit more than brands,” Lance warned in a shaky voice.

Embarrassingly, it took Shiro a while to understand where Lance was coming from. Scars. There’d be a lot of them, judging from the traumatic story he’d just heard.

A blotchy red flush covered his neck and he pulled the back of his t-shirt over his head, revealing skin that was littered with tiger stripes in thick swathes across otherwise smooth muscle.

Despite being stick thin and lanky, there were wiry muscles wrapped around his arms and torso. Clearly Lance wasn’t malnourished, though the stretch marks suggested that that wasn’t always the case.

Shiro swallowed and turned his attention to the scar that stretched across Lance’s torso. The sheer size of it made him sick to his stomach - it ran from the bottom of Lance’s ribs on the left to his opposite hip and was much thicker than any Shiro had on his body. Something (some _one_ ) had slashed something across his abdomen and judging from the enormity of it, had almost removed his intestines.

One pectoral had an ugly red brand, shiny and surrounded by bubbled, white skin. Bullet grazes littered almost every square inch of skin, interspersed with knife wounds and what looked like bayonet stabs.

“It’s not pretty, is it,” he laughed mirthlessly, spreading his arms wide and baring himself for Shiro to see.

“They don’t have to be,” Shiro murmured in reply. “It’s the story that matters, not the appearance.”

Lance’s breathing hitched and he glanced away before turning around slowly.

Shiro couldn’t stop himself. He reached out a hand and stroked the large, oddly circular bruise that marred the skin between Lance’s shoulder blades. It was black and blue, ugly yellows and greens mixed in. It felt a bit swollen as well.

“Have you been resting this? It’s right between your shoulder blades, too much exercise could lead to joint failure,” Shiro warned, pressing a thumb gently against the damaged flesh.

Lance yelped and shot Shiro a glare, but said nothing.

Whips. That’s what the tiger stripes were. They lashed across his across his back, skin a lighter shade than normal. They criss-crossed over each other, some clearly much deeper than others, some barbed, some red-hot.

Shiro hissed and scowled at the scars. How dare someone do that to Lance?

At his coccyx was a large patch of burned skin that disappeared into the waistband of his jeans.

As though Lance could feel his gaze physically he shuddered and placed one hand on his hip, stroking the skin thoughtfully.

“That was from a landmine,” he said, lost in memory. “I was trying to get out of the no man’s land between us and the army…”

Shiro froze, hand still resting on Lance’s back.

“Was carrying a friend...he lost a leg, I think. Couldn’t walk, there was blood everywhere. There were maybe thirty metres to the trench...but Kaito’s leg hit a mine. Went flying, clothes on fire. Burned me to hell. Kai didn’t make it.” Lance started shaking again, his shoulders tensing and relaxing periodically.

Shiro smoothed a thumb over his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“It’s alright Lance, you’re not there now,” he reassured, looking into Lance’s eyes. He stared back and his pupils dilated and constricted rapidly.

There were a few raised black lumps on his shoulders and neck, presumably from shrapnel. Shiro ran a hand over them slowly, until Lance returned to the present, his eyes still mismatched from the drugs, though he was obviously coming off of his high.

On his bicep was another ugly brand, this one smaller and obviously done with less heat judging by there being less scar tissue. He also had a black tattoo of a hyena with some Arabic words beneath it.

“Fi sabil allah walhurria,” he explained, the language dropping fluently from his lips. “For Allah and freedom.”

Shiro winced and nodded. Everyone was aware of the nightmarish attacks that had plagued east Asia for the past decade.

They sat down again, knees touching. Shiro wasn’t quite sure what happened next, choosing just to watch Lance’s expression morph from distress to anger to sadness and back.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

Lance frowned.

“Well...you always have so much to worry about and I didn’t want to add anything...I’ve always been good at keeping control during what my therapist called ‘episodes’,” he sneered. “And Hunk gets panic attacks. I didn’t want to trigger one, he’s gone so long since he’s had one. Keith...well, let’s just say that Keith isn’t exactly the most approachable person, is he?”

Shiro allowed himself a chuckle at that, trying to imagine Keith helping Lance through an ‘episode’. He wasn’t great at it when it was Shiro, let alone the one person on the ship who could push his buttons so much.

“And Pidge I mean she’d care, but Pidge has a bit of an issue with the comforting aspect of things. I’m not trying to be rude, but I doubt she’d be particularly good at helping me out. Coran and Allura probably have no idea what this thing even is and...well, I don’t really know them, do I?”

“No, but…”

Lance leant back and looked up at the stars. Shiro felt his breath catch as he watched the pinpricks of light play across the serene expression that covered Lance’s face. He smiled gently at the ceiling.

“In all honesty, I thought that if I could handle it, I could prove something to myself. It turns out I was wrong, but this time I can do it. If I don’t stay optimistic, what’s the point in anything?”

Shiro was sure that his heartbeat was clearly audible.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a saying my mum said. She claimed it was an ancient proverb, but I reckon she talked shit out of her mouth eighty percent of the time she was raising me. It was...uh… ‘don’t count your blessings before children’. I think what she was trying to say was that good things so easily disappear, something I learned pretty early on.” Lance’s voice was quiet, contemplative. It was a jarring change

“No problem. But even if you didn’t want to tell us about your childhood-”

“What childhood?” Lance asked bitterly. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Yeah, so, why didn’t you tell us about anything? We could have helped, even if it was just training or dealing with panic attacks or-”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lance interrupted, looking shocked and confused.

“Uh...no?”

“Oh.” He scratched his neck awkwardly. “I...I mean I know that I’m the weakest link of the group and even though I have something else that I should be doing...I don’t want to fail you guys. I mean you...you’re like, my hero and Keith is super talented it’s... _jodemente molesto_ -”

“Language,” Shiro coughed, almost hoping to break the tense atmosphere that had settled between them. After all, it wasn’t too hard to get the gist of what Lance was saying.

“Sorry. Hunk and Pidge are insanely smart and can literally do anything so...I just don’t want to let you all down, because you’re all amazing and I’m...I’m damaged goods.”

Shiro winced, the same thoughts having plagued his mind before.

“Also there’s the small issue of not wanting to appear weak when you can deal with it on a much worse scale and be fine outwardly.”

“What?” Shiro yelped, eyes wide in shock. Lance shot up comically but Shiro was now glaring at the scarred boy.

“Well...yeah? I mean, you were... _tortured_ by a bunch of _alien druidesses_ , forced to kill for _entertainment_ , lost your _arm_...need I go on?” Lance replied slowly, looking at Shiro like he was being particularly dumb.

Shiro gaped at him.

“Didn’t the exact same thing happen to you?” he said.

Lance was now looking like a fish. A very angry fish.

“How can you even compare me to you? You have so much more experience and you’re so brave and I am just a kid with a bad background! Even though you’ve been through hell and back, you still keep fighting but whenever I think about going back and saving my friends, I get a fucking seizure because I don’t even want to get inside ten miles of the place!”

“Exactly! If I’m so brave, how can my PTSD be worse than yours?”

They both stopped talking, realising at exactly the same time that they were arguing about whose mental disability was worse.

Lance sniggered.

“I see where Keith gets it from.”

“Shut up.”

“... _besame el culo_.”

“Lance…”

“What?” he said innocently. Shiro almost fell for it, just because he looked so cute.

“You are a terrible human being,” Shiro said jokingly, knowing that being treated normally was what he needed. He snorted in response and punched the prosthetic arm lightly.

“Takes one to know one!”

Shiro rolled his eyes jokingly, pulling Lance into his lap again and burying his face in the crook of Lance’s neck. If it wasn’t Lance in his lap, he would’ve guessed that the sudden heat on his forehead was because of Lance, but then again, Lance was the master of romance.

“Hey...Shiro?”

“Yeah?”

The temperature increased still further. Shiro wondered when his forehead started sweating.

“Um...nevermind.”

“No, you have to tell me now!” Shiro demanded, sounding like a petulant child

“So...I like someone.”

“Oh really?” Shiro coughed awkwardly. He wondered where this was going, seeing as it was such a drastic change in topic. Then again, Lance had smoked five alien plant joints this evening, so his sobriety left something to be desired. “Can I ask who might hold the key to your heart?”

“ _Cristo_ , do you have to sound like you swallowed a teen romance novel?” Lance guffawed, throwing an arm carelessly over his eyes and burying his face in the crook of his elbow.

“You’re totally avoiding the question,” Shiro pointed out, unsure whether to allow that small bundle of hope in his chest to grow.

“Ten points to Gryffindor,” Lance retorted. “The reason I’m bringing it up is because I...wanted to know if you think that I should tell them?” His voice went quite squeaky at the end of that sentence. Shiro bit his lip to hide his excitement.

“Well...we are in a spaceship several thousand light-years from earth, so unless you're committed to not seeing each other at all, then…”

“Shut the fu- _dge_ up, Shiro-”

“Nice save.”

“-you little-”

“I’m almost seven inches taller than you.”

“-I will kick your ass so far into space you’ll reach the end of the universe.”

Shiro laughed and ruffled Lance’s hair so that it stood on end. He sobered up when he remembered the previous topic of conversation.

“You probably figured this one out, asshole, but they’re on this ship,” Lance grumbled, continuing from where he’d left off. Well, Shiro mused, that narrowed it down a lot.

“Hey, Lance?”

“What?”

“Want to go on a date with me?”

It was comedy gold. Lance’s legs and torso shot up like he’d been punched hard in the stomach, his face went bright red and all the breath in his lungs appeared to vanish.

“Shiro, I am going to fucking kill you, oh my god,” he spluttered when he’d regained control of his body. He scooted away from Shiro, arms raised to ward off attackers and eyes narrowed on the laughing man before him.

“I’ll take that as a yes?”

“I was going to ask! You totally stole my spotlight man! Don’t you have any respect for love confessions?”

“Love confessions? Really?”

“Quote unquote: ‘who holds the key to your heart?’. Don’t think you can be playing smooth now, _Takashi_.”

Shiro’s face burned as Lance drew out his first name excruciatingly slowly.

“You piece of shit.”

“Uh uh uh, language young man!” Lance laughed, wagging a finger in his direction, one hand on his hip.

His eyes were still bloodshot and he clearly wasn’t in the best mind frame at all. His PTSD was severe and the scars on his body attested to that. Lance wasn’t broken, not at all, and he wasn’t damaged. He had a story and parts of it were sad and parts even traumatic, but the future was clean and untainted. There were things to be fixed, planets to save and an evil alien emperor to kill. Lance had his own mission and his own plan, one that Shiro wanted in on.

Yes, dark times were ahead, but with them, Shiro could see a whole lot of light. Who cares if he sounded like he was a walking talking romance novel male protagonist? With Lance by his side and his friends at his back, there was nothing he couldn’t do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dudes, I am so sorry this is late. Holy fuck I am such a bad person. Also, I haven't been checking the comments but I was on my email account and I opened my spam mail and saw all these comment alerts on this story and then it clicked that I had completely forgotten about this. 
> 
> I'm thinking about adding maybe a long one-shot of how Lance gets revenge on his captors and frees his friends, but don't expect it anytime soon - I'm going skiing next week and mum's banned laptops so... :/
> 
> If you're interested, check it out for me! (Obvs not yet, because I haven't written it, lol)
> 
> Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this story! It's been a hell of a ride. I actually wrote this last year, 19 Feb, to be exact, so it's been a long one for me.
> 
> Again, so sorry for the late update!  
> ~Marshy
> 
> (Oh yeah, probably should have put this on the first chapter, but if you read the chapter titles and then the first sentence as one, then *wink wonk*)
> 
> TRANSLATIONS
> 
> jodemente molesto - fucking annoying
> 
> besame el culo - kiss my ass
> 
> Cristo - Christ


End file.
